Developing Trader's State of Mind Discussion

[Rande Howell 10]

Possibly some of you may find these extracts of interest.

 

Krishnamurti on Fear

 

If letting go of fear of the unknown creates a perpetual state of curiosity, then everything from Trading to Rande's work and beyond has a natural tendency to fall into place.

 

The natural tendency in cosmic time is perceived very differently in temporal time. Most traders do not have enough time to play the cosmic time clock.

 

Rande Howell

[Rande Howell 10]

johnw ... on the subject of judgements, in my case Krishnamurti would be "preaching to the choir" ...

 

Related to the thread (and Rande can correct me if I'm off (or explain why) ) ... seems he uses the term 'assessments' instead of 'judgements' in the practical application work of the course...

 

Assessment and judgment are used by me to distinguish between evidence that supports an interpretation of performance while judgment holds the quality of a characterization of the self. This comes out of the work of Fernando Flores who was a student of Martin Heideger. Self limiting beliefs are external judgments of a human being that have taken on the feel of truth. Assessment is a way to interprete competence in performance. Makes a huge difference in the way a trader sees him or her self and their performance.

 

Rande Howell

[johnw 10]

The natural tendency in cosmic time is perceived very differently in temporal time. Most traders do not have enough time to play the cosmic time clock.

 

Rande Howell

 

 

You have lost me Rande.

 

I thought we were all trying to improve our perception of reality through trading.

 

Are you saying that Curiosity plays no part in this process.

Curiosity lead me to buying your book, which is excellent in my opinion.

[Rande Howell 10]

You have lost me Rande.

 

I thought we were all trying to improve our perception of reality through trading.

 

Are you saying that Curiosity plays no part in this process.

Curiosity lead me to buying your book, which is excellent in my opinion.

 

johnw

 

Curiosity is an important aspect of Mindfulness and is part of how the brain/mind teases apart rigidly held beliefs. And we are on a journey to improve our perception of reality through trading. My point is that there are different ways of understanding time. Geologic or evolutionary time is very different than the sense of time than is experienced typically in trading. God has an eternity to work out the kinks in the cosmos. The temporal time that we must manage in our everyday lives is very different. It's the reactiveness of set patterns that need to be addressed. In due time, I have no doubt that it will all work out. Meanwhile, I'm all for the altering of neurally wired beliefs much more rapidly.

 

My guess is that I should have left your comment alone. Sorry about any confusion.

 

Rande

[zdo 20]

OK, assessment it is then ...'gonna have to call bs on that one' is an assessment

'

 

johnw,

 

“'gonna have to call bs on that one' is an assessment” is also an assessment

That ‘call bs’ was the first judgement of my whole life

Also the first time ‘my’ ego was ever active :missy:

… “Lead me not into temptation” - I can find it myself

 

…speaking of ego

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBUgFRdoFYo&feature=related]How and when to separate oneself from the ego - YouTube[/ame]

Mentions Krishnamurti ‘s You Are The World book.

 

Seriously - calling that 'bs' was really just petty parsing. In my current beliefs, all Krishnamurti described in that article was still at the level of brain and what I call ‘first body’ … was economically pointing out that nothing he discussed had really risen to the level of ‘Mind’ yet for me…

 

Many thanks for your contirbutions.

 

zdo

 

 

ps admin, is there a way to post a utube link that just puts up the hyperlink text and doesn' show the youtube picture ready to run? thx

[zdo 20]

...In any case, I like how you admit that your 4-week course is too short and lacks "a powerful tool" you use only with your individual clients. I think that is called the "upsell" in marketing parlance. I'm sure if you offered it to zdo for free he would become your bosom buddy for life, or at least your ultimate shill. The "pmai" is it? To awaken the inner heroes? I think a pack of Yu Gi Oh cards does the same. I see the kids having a lot of fun with them after school at the local McDonald's.

 

gosu,

Please start a separate Kill Rande thread for that sht. It would probably have a larger audience than this one. I’ll try to make some time to come over and “shill”… thx

zdo

[zdo 20]

How much self-awareness does a person need to avoid trouble in the markets?

 

If a person knows all about orphans, rulers and warriors, and whether or not they are in shadow form, does it mean he has self-awareness?

 

More to the point, can a person extract from the markets without self-awareness?

 

 

 

gosu,

re your questions - First, please explain to us how you are using your term “self - awareness”. Yours’ is the first usage of that term in this thread. I don’t think Rande has used it much on TL except in one article a while back. What do you mean by “self-awareness” ?

thanks.

zdo

[gosu 10]

gosu,

Please start a separate Kill Rande thread for that sht. It would probably have a larger audience than this one. I’ll try to make some time to come over and “shill”… thx

zdo

 

No one is killing Rande here. You need to step away from being his lap dog to see that though.

 

Thanks for your suggestion to start another thread, but I'm not here to attract an audience and I don't care enough about what's going on here to do that.

 

Go back to stirring the KOOL-aid, you're doing fine.

[gosu 10]

gosu,

re your questions - First, please explain to us how you are using your term “self - awareness”. Yours’ is the first usage of that term in this thread. I don’t think Rande has used it much on TL except in one article a while back. What do you mean by “self-awareness” ?

thanks.

zdo

 

When I quote the person in my post, you can take that to mean that my question refers to what the person said in his post. You've been on this site a lot longer than I have so I'm sure you know that's how it works.

 

Thus, I'm not sure if you're splitting hairs or just careless in your reading. I intend the meaning of "self-awareness" to be the same as the meaning of "awareness of self" in the post I quoted. The exact quote is "It is the lack of awareness of self that gets traders in trouble." If it helps you, just substitute "awareness of self" for "self-awareness" in my questions.

[Rande Howell 10]

No one is killing Rande here. You need to step away from being his lap dog to see that though.

 

Thanks for your suggestion to start another thread, but I'm not here to attract an audience and I don't care enough about what's going on here to do that.

 

Go back to stirring the KOOL-aid, you're doing fine.

 

Just to set things a little straighter. I know zdo only from TL and do not know his real name. I asked him to manage this thread because, over time, I came to appreciate his level headed ness. Since he has never done any of any of my work and appeared truly interested in advancing knowledge of trading, and recognizing the need for emotional and psychological development, he seemed a good prospect. that's it.

 

As far as Killing Rande, I really don't care what people say when there assessments are globalized and are not evidenced base. I listen to people's comments about my performances, but place no value on their judgments of my being. It is simply not theirs to judge.

 

rande Howell

[zdo 20]

How much self-awareness does a person need to avoid trouble in the markets?

 

If a person knows all about orphans, rulers and warriors, and whether or not they are in shadow form, does it mean he has self-awareness?

 

More to the point, can a person extract from the markets without self-awareness?

 

 

...

 

 

If it helps you, just substitute "awareness of self" for "self-awareness" in my questions

 

 

For the general audience, I’ll loosely answer those questions.

“…can a person extract from the markets without self-awareness?” Of course.

But is a Tom Baldwin, for a ready example, more “self aware” than say a Paul Tutor Jones ? Yes.

Both excel. We’re not comparing failures to successes here.. we’re talking about incrementally building on strengths (an important distinction for all the ‘critics’ out there and ‘in here’ btw)

And which one made more money, more quickly, directly from trading? Tom. The ‘tom baldwin’ has an slightly more together/integrated sitting “inner counsel” of players…in this particular framework

 

It’s not about “knows all about orphans…” etc. … ( who knows, maybe you were using the ‘knows’ word like or not like someone else…) but however he’s using it, readers – “knows” is a trap!

 

This work is not a be all to end all. To me it is, in some ways, simply about adding more effective heuristic sets. Charles Munger, koolaid stirrer for Warren Buffett, has mastered 80+ of these ‘heuristic models’ for himself. According to Buffett, he has “the best thirty second mind in the world. He goes from A to Z in one move. He sees the essence… ”

 

Emotion is part and parcel of every thought, memory, neural activity… etc. It is not a side effect or minor element. It is a “data source that requires non standard ways of learning” to utilize properly and consistently – to wax lapdog for Denise Shull for a moment... Unfortunately for them, frustrated losers coincidently drop out of this kind of work about the time they get started.

 

gosu, so far you are like some dude who shows up at a football practice standing on the sidelines yelling criticisms at the coaches… which is kind of sad because you are most likely the “smartest guy in the class”.

so re: “Thanks for your suggestion to start another thread, but I'm not here to attract an audience and I don't care enough about what's going on here to do that.”

I’ve gotten on you about this before – if you don’t really care, then shut up.

Serve yourself elsewhere…work on your own projected weaknesses elsewhere… go from C(onstant) to C(riticism) elsewhere...

[gosu 10]

Just to set things a little straighter. I know zdo only from TL and do not know his real name. I asked him to manage this thread because, over time, I came to appreciate his level headed ness. Since he has never done any of any of my work and appeared truly interested in advancing knowledge of trading, and recognizing the need for emotional and psychological development, he seemed a good prospect. that's it.

 

I commend you for picking the right person to man the punch bowl. His enthusiasm for your teachings is obvious and even before he began your course he was recommending it to others. "He seemed a good prospect" indeed.

 

As far as Killing Rande, I really don't care what people say when there assessments are globalized and are not evidenced base. I listen to people's comments about my performances, but place no value on their judgments of my being. It is simply not theirs to judge.

 

"Killing Rande" is something your Kool Aid stirrer made up. I do not think I am "killing" you or even bashing you by any means. Let me know which of my questions that I posed to you were "value judgments of [your] being" and I'll be sure to retract them and apologize.

 

The truth is I do not know you from Adam. For all I know you are probably a good husband, father, member of your church, etc. None of that is relevant to anything here. You hold yourself out as a guru of trading. I think you know a lot about your field but I know you know little about trading. What you post about trading is bullshit in my opinion. Nothing wrong with that. This is the internet; we are all free to bullshit as much as we like. I like to bullshit about trading too. Usually after a day of trading it helps me unwind a bit. I find it better to bullshit with other bullshitters. Sometimes that looks like "killing" to a person who is protective of your guru status.

 

Nothing personal.

[zdo 20]

errata:

Kill Rande should have read Rande Must Die

right genre, wrong movie ...

[SpideySense 10]

>>>

I really don't care what people say when there assessments are globalized and are not evidenced base.

<<<

 

Evidenced based is excellent.

 

OK. Your book, which has a lot of words, spends quite few of them on Jungian Archetypes and you also refer to Carol's book. All of which make a Spider's senses tingle very unpleasantly.

 

All the research I've done puts Jung's archetypes in the skeptic beware territory. Its a little like the old I'm Ok Your Ok followers who found they had parents, adults, and children. And I see a touch of it in the pro-course posts on this thread.

 

 

Where is the evidence base for the Jungian Archetype part of your prescription?

[Rande Howell 10]

Evidenced based is excellent.

 

OK. Your book, which has a lot of words, spends quite few of them on Jungian Archetypes and you also refer to Carol's book. All of which make a Spider's senses tingle very unpleasantly.

 

All the research I've done puts Jung's archetypes in the skeptic beware territory. Its a little like the old I'm Ok Your Ok followers who found they had parents, adults, and children. And I see a touch of it in the pro-course posts on this thread.

 

 

Where is the evidence base for the Jungian Archetype part of your prescription?

 

From one of the most reliable and tested personality inventories ever used. The Myers-Briggs personality inventory is derivative of Jung's archetypes. And both authors went to Jung to get his approval for quantifying his archetypes in the way they did. The M-B was orginally commissioned by the Army after they recognized how terrribly they organized men into teams during WW1. The creators studied his archetypes and built them into the instrument. Army's organization of men into coordinated teams improved to produce a very different Army for WW11 (that's the proof). The M-B has stood the test of time. And is still used today and is considered the grand daddy of all personality inventories. Dirivatives of it are used as a way of selecting all sorts of employees by business. Pearson's work is much more pure and succient in accessing and measuring the elements of personality in my opinion. The PMAI is a powerfully valid and reliable instrument for measuring elements of the human personality. Pearson selected a statistics guy with impeccable credentials to produce and validate the tests.

 

I would suggest that you take the pmai and discover for yourself, particularly the shadow side. My suspicion (not fact) is that you would find strong Creator (intuition) and shadow Orphan (trust issues).

 

Rande Howell

[SIUYA 11]

The truth is I do not know you from Adam. For all I know you are probably a good husband, father, member of your church, etc. None of that is relevant to anything here. You hold yourself out as a guru of trading. I think you know a lot about your field but I know you know little about trading. What you post about trading is bullshit in my opinion. Nothing wrong with that. This is the internet; we are all free to bullshit as much as we like. I like to bullshit about trading too. Usually after a day of trading it helps me unwind a bit. I find it better to bullshit with other bullshitters. Sometimes that looks like "killing" to a person who is protective of your guru status.

 

Nothing personal.

 

Problem is gosu, Rande actually says he does not trade and is more an expert in psychology, and you are making it personal.

I like you am not much of a believer - thats part of my personality, but I still dont mind reading other points of view without continual interjections from one who is admittedly full of BS. From a common decency point of view, once your point is made are you best not to let it drop and ask questions that might create debate/discussion rather than conflict???

Too often the skeptic looses credibility and pushes those wavering toward the guru....maybe thats what you really want, maybe you are the real lackey of Rande and Zdo is just the fall guy.....ahh the Machiavellian evil brilliance.

 

(Plus Rande, just because the US army and corporations use the personality test is not evidence it works - just evidence its widely used and recognized compared to other personality tests. and so probably still has great validity.

--- and on that note, a serious question - if we have personality tests that catgorise us, and I assume the premise that we can change our base personalities remains the same.

In which case a myers briggs test taken at one stage in life is likely to reveal a different personality at a different stage in life? or are we really stuck with who we are?

[Rande Howell 10]

(Plus Rande, just because the US army and corporations use the personality test is not evidence it works - just evidence its widely used and recognized compared to other personality tests. and so probably still has great validity.

--- and on that note, a serious question - if we have personality tests that catgorise us, and I assume the premise that we can change our base personalities remains the same.

In which case a myers briggs test taken at one stage in life is likely to reveal a different personality at a different stage in life? or are we really stuck with who we are?

 

SIUYA

 

This is really a good point. When I work with a business evaluating a potential hire, I send the prospective employee to a trained testing psychologist. Part of the hiring decision is based on the assessment of current functioning. Certain working traits are looked for. And the testing, which does not produce certainty but does rachet up probabilty, does cut out a lot of guess work and bad intuitive hunches. Recently a friend of mine was hired by an insurance firm after an exhaustive series of tests and interviews that blew me away. They knew what traits they were looking for and produced a rigorous way of observing for them. When you realize the investment they make in their personnel, you can see why they wanted the odds in their favor. He has done exceptionally well. Rare talent met intentional focused training.

 

One of the problems of psyhological thinking from the early 1900's into present time is the notion of determinism. That there is finite character traits that can be defined and do not change. I personally do not hold this. And it is one of the reasons that I like the archetypal system developed by Jung and Pearson. People change over time. Traits morph based on experience, circumstance, and maturity. They are not permanent. I would hope that, based on circumstance and maturation, that the archetypes that are in current expression within a person's personality will change. I certainly see this happening.

 

The strength of an archetype is often never developed in a person given a certain environment. Later in a different environment, those elements of the self that were once pushed out of awareness are reawakened. Walk into an AA meeting and listen to people with 5, 10, 20 years in the program and you will see the fruit of this.

 

I tend to look at people like a stream. It appears permanent on the surface. But it changes. And as the Buddhists say, you never step into the same stream twice.

 

We certainly can become hardened and our attitudes become like concrete. It doesn't have to be this way. But it does take work and awareness to change. And I find the dynamics of trading to challenge the concrete the trader brings to trading. It's kinda like a jack hammer. The first order of business is to delvelop a psychology organized around the management of uncertainty rather than fear. The majority of traders (not everyone, but most) are capable of this to a degree that can produce a livable income. It requires a desire, a commitment, and education.

 

Rande Howell

[zdo 20]

... just because the US army and corporations use the personality test is not evidence it works - just evidence its widely used and recognized compared to other personality tests. and so probably still has great validity.

--- and on that note, a serious question - if we have personality tests that catgorise us, and I assume the premise that we can change our base personalities remains the same.

In which case a myers briggs test taken at one stage in life is likely to reveal a different personality at a different stage in life? or are we really stuck with who we are?

 

I don’t really understand how organizations can utilize the test. I don’t really think the typical HR bozo would be able to use it to build teams or even screen out ‘incompatibles’. Using it for ‘categorization’ may be misguided and naïve. re questions about the evidence:

In the early 80’s, I had access to the test through a friend in the field and learned how to score any dang type I wanted to be… it didn’t make me any more of a sentient being…

Also, my wife tells me that the percentage of those scoring INT_ is skewed pretty low (~10%) and those who are INT_’s also score significantly high on intelligence tests… something’s fishy at least.

Raises more questions than answers…

 

I personally tend to just ignore all that crap about the test and use it and similar measures for insight into my particular current strengths and blind spots..

The base Jungian theory is that each of us starts with tendencies (not exclusive) in one of the Jungian ‘types’… some of the more esoteric work in this field, (the juicy stuff, imo) has us starting in one ‘category’ and our potential across a lifetime is the development of a awareness of, competency in, and ultimately a synergistic integration of all the types that were recessive at the start. Jung called it “individuation”.

 

Jung theorized four distinct ways of ‘metabolizing’ experience. In real life, out and about, they are all actually operational simultaneously… but mostly below the level of awareness, as are most life processes… we each develop (or genetically unfold?) a tendency to habitually go to the well on one or two of them and ignore the others.

The life challenge is to integrate all of these types, etc.

 

I’m no expert but the archetypes are basically common human experiences along developmental lines mostly. Someone mentions orphan and unless you’re seriously damaged you can relate to it – it’s a child who has been abandoned and feels it. Someone mentions puer. You may not be able to get real close to it but you can still somehow relate to and understand some guy who is endlessly traveling, seeking, never quite settling down, etc.. We can relate to, via “archetypes”, all the varieties of being and then not being a virgin… or a lover... etc etc etc. Some archetypes we can relate to closely, even though you have never 'acted them out'. Other archetypes we will be as frickn blind as a bat to – and often in judgement, declare closure and can hardly even concede the existence of such human experiences. As best I can tell, Rande is focusing more on the emotional components of each of these common (developmental) 'attractors'

 

I prefer resistance to closure and getting as much as I can from these 'fringes' of our understanding. Looking back, I'm seeing archetypal areas where I need to 'retrace' and try a do over... with even less thinking type activity... etc.

 

This whole framework is just a tool. Calling someone's competency and intentions into question because they can work within a framework, "scientific" or not, is ... to put it nicely, not very inclusive...

the critics herein act as if they've suddenly discovered a unique way we may be fooling ourselves - when it may just be a way to prevent fooling ourselves... hm

"I love fool's experiments. I'm always making them." C.Darwin

[gosu 10]

Problem is gosu, Rande actually says he does not trade and is more an expert in psychology, and you are making it personal.

I like you am not much of a believer - thats part of my personality, but I still dont mind reading other points of view without continual interjections from one who is admittedly full of BS. From a common decency point of view, once your point is made are you best not to let it drop and ask questions that might create debate/discussion rather than conflict???

Too often the skeptic looses credibility and pushes those wavering toward the guru....maybe thats what you really want, maybe you are the real lackey of Rande and Zdo is just the fall guy.....ahh the Machiavellian evil brilliance.

 

* * *

 

Where have I gotten personal? I have no problem with Rande and if my posts gain him more clients, that would hardly displease me. His touting his services here makes this site more fun to visit. I do recognize he has to put food on the table and a wife to support, and we all know he's incapable of extracting what he needs from the market.

 

Of course I don't give him a free pass for saying he doesn't trade. That's the whole point! Most trading vendors have to tap dance around actual trading performance questions and he has found a way to hold himself out as a trading guru without getting such questions from people like you. I find that quite ingenious to be honest.

 

With regard to asking questions to further the discussion, maybe you haven't noticed that I have been asking questions. They all relate to the statements he makes about how to trade. Usually my questions go unanswered, I suppose for the reason he has no actual experience to draw from and has not thought through carefully the drivel he puts forth about trading. This is a message board. If you can't handle needling someone about such things here, then you've got problems.

 

In any case, you are mistaken if you think I am here to gain "credibility" or save people from gurus. If my posts are too much for your sensitivities, the solution is to put me on ignore, which is the same advice I gave to zdo. To help in that regard, I do say upfront that my posts are bullshit so you won't be missing anything by not reading them.

[SpideySense 10]

From one of the most reliable and tested personality inventories ever used. The Myers-Briggs personality inventory is derivative of Jung's archetypes. And both authors went to Jung to get his approval for quantifying his archetypes in the way they did. The M-B was orginally commissioned by the Army after they recognized how terrribly they organized men into teams during WW1. The creators studied his archetypes and built them into the instrument. Army's organization of men into coordinated teams improved to produce a very different Army for WW11 (that's the proof). The M-B has stood the test of time. And is still used today and is considered the grand daddy of all personality inventories. Dirivatives of it are used as a way of selecting all sorts of employees by business. Pearson's work is much more pure and succient in accessing and measuring the elements of personality in my opinion. The PMAI is a powerfully valid and reliable instrument for measuring elements of the human personality. Pearson selected a statistics guy with impeccable credentials to produce and validate the tests.

 

I would suggest that you take the pmai and discover for yourself, particularly the shadow side. My suspicion (not fact) is that you would find strong Creator (intuition) and shadow Orphan (trust issues).

 

Rande Howell

 

 

OK. So much for your argument that others need to be evidence based. That is not evidence in the modern psychological or social science meanings of the word, so there is no evidence then.

[gosu 10]

 

* * *

 

* * * The first order of business is to delvelop a psychology organized around the management of uncertainty rather than fear. The majority of traders (not everyone, but most) are capable of this to a degree that can produce a livable income.* * *

 

 

This is pure entertainment.

 

You say that the majority of traders (not everyone, but most) can produce a livable income? Since you are into "evidence based" assessments, may I ask what your evidence is for such an audacious statement?

[Rande Howell 10]

OK. So much for your argument that others need to be evidence based. That is not evidence in the modern psychological or social science meanings of the word, so there is no evidence then.

 

???????????????????

Rande Howell

[Rande Howell 10]

To all

 

Since the course is over and the participants eventually migrated over to a yahoo chatroom where the conversation could stay focused on the topic of developing traders state of mind, I believe this forum has run its course.

 

To those traders who were observing this forum as way to study trader psychology from a closer perspective, I apologize for the degradation that occurred here. My hope was that you were going to be able to be witness to traders working with materials that can become the tools for transformation. That didn't happen. The space clearly got sucked into a different kind of vortex. But you did get to see personal psychologies interact with one another. Just not about trading.

 

It's been an interesting experiment and I thank zdo for riding herd as well as he did.

 

Rande Howell

[steve46 12]

Rande

 

Like many here, I have no idea what (if any) benefit your clients receive from attending....and whether the benefit is immediate or seen later as they trade...?

 

So perhaps you might want to ask your clients to post (maybe every few months) to let us know how they are doing, and whether they see any improvement as a result of attendance at this seminar.

 

Thank you

 

Steve

[zdo 20]

Rande

 

Like many here, I have no idea what (if any) benefit your clients receive from attending....and whether the benefit is immediate or seen later as they trade...?

 

So perhaps you might want to ask your clients to post (maybe every few months) to let us know how they are doing, and whether they see any improvement as a result of attendance at this seminar.

 

Thank you

 

Steve

 

Rande, rather than kill the thread I had planned to just open it up to everyone - including the previously uninvited - to, if nothing else, 'make some lemonade'

Steve46, good idea. brief immediate impressions - I'm grateful he is in this field and am glad that he is bringing forward what has unfolded from his work in finding his own self compatible models for 'change and growth' and what is being made available to traders in particular from his previous training, study, and work with other populations.

What I have applied so far has had immediate benefits, but the long term benefit is in laying down new patterns - which takes time and work. It will take some time for me to bring my own timing, etc to the sequences of the major practices he taught. For example, it seemed like the breaths were coming too fast and not frequent enough per 'section'...etc

Also, his verbally 'guided' sessions understandably emphasized common issues like 'pulling the trigger' , etc. I personally have not had issues with pulling the trigger for many years, so the 'ramp up' content was, for me, quite distracting to the process I was trying to do and fear contents I was trying to work with. This just means that rather than being able to utilize the tapes directly, I will need to extract the essence of the protocols and create my own scripts and timing... note though that any and all participants would ultimately have to make adaptations on their own - not just me. It's part of the work. A coach or teacher in any field can teach you what to do and focus on, but it's always up to the individual to go out and really learn / ingrain it.

 

I invite all the participants to come on with some 'testimmonial' of their experiences too (+ or -) ... gotta go...more later... you all have a great weekend